ISO 22301 – The Executive Guide to Operational Resilience

A continuity plan is only valuable if it still works when normal arrangements fail.

ISO 22301 – The Executive Guide to Operational Resilience provides a practical, experience-led approach to business continuity leadership before, during and after disruption.

Written for senior leaders, operational managers, business continuity professionals, risk managers, auditors and organisations working towards or maintaining ISO 22301 certification, this guide explains how to build a continuity capability that protects priority services rather than simply producing more documentation.

Inside, Robert Porter examines:

• The structure and purpose of a business continuity management system

• Business impact analysis and defensible recovery priorities

• Disruption risks, dependencies and single points of failure

• Practical continuity strategies for people, premises, technology and suppliers

• Response structures, escalation and decision authority

• Crisis communication and interested-party requirements

• Continuity plans that people can use under pressure

• Exercise design and realistic capability validation

• Recovery, backlog management and controlled return to normal operations

• Staff competence, welfare, fatigue and operational handovers

• Supplier assurance and technology recovery

• Climate-related continuity considerations

• Internal audit, management review and continual improvement

• A practical executive resilience-readiness scorecard

Drawing on extensive leadership experience across complex, safety-critical and customer-facing operations, Robert approaches resilience as an operational capability—not a promise that disruption can always be prevented.

The guide addresses the issues that often undermine continuity arrangements in practice: unclear authority, unrealistic recovery expectations, untested suppliers, unavailable specialists, weak handovers, inaccessible plans and assumptions that collapse under real operational pressure.

Based on the current ISO 22301:2019 requirements, Amendment 1:2024 and supporting ISO guidance, the book also explains the developing third edition without presenting draft material as settled fact.

A concise and direct guide for leaders responsible for protecting essential delivery, making decisions under pressure and ensuring their organisation can recover with control and confidence